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The Ohio Department of Transportation symbolically kicked off its $200 million I-71/670
reconstruction project yesterday by emphasizing the economic impact that three years of
construction will have on central Ohio.

More than 450 construction, engineering and technical jobs will ripple outward into retail,
financial and other sectors of the job market, according to a report commissioned by the
department.

In all, the project will create or sustain nearly 1,000 jobs, the report said, and those jobs
will put more than $29 million in tax money into state and local budgets.

“It’s asphalt and stone and steel and gravel, and those people have to eat lunch and cut grass,”
ODOT Director Jerry Wray said at a ceremony near the now-closed ramp from Long Street to northbound
I-71.

The I-71/670 rebuild is the first of three scheduled projects designed to reduce crashes,
eliminate weaving traffic and relieve congestion along Downtown highways.

About 137,000 vehicles move through the interchange every day, twice as many as it was designed
to accommodate.

Work already has shut down four Downtown highway ramps, and 12 more are scheduled to close by
November for as long as two years.

Although the project is sure to slow travel and frustrate drivers in the interim, officials set
out 300 traffic cones to illustrate the number of people who’ll be working on the interchange when
construction hits its peak.

“I can think of no other project that will have a greater economic impact on central Ohio,” said
Chester Jourdan, executive director of the Mid-Ohio Regional Planning Commission.

It’s only the beginning.

After the first phase is complete, the state plans to rebuild the I-70/71 interchange near
Nationwide Children’s Hospital and then the stretch of I-71 between the two interchanges.

Those two projects will cost an estimated $368 million and push construction through 2015.
Reconstruction of the western I-70/71 interchange and I-70 along the southern edge of Downtown is
planned but not scheduled or funded. The entire project could last longer than a decade and cost
more than $1 billion.

Benefits not quantified by the report include reduced travel times and improved safety once the
rebuilt interchange is in use. The report was written by Bill Lafayette, a former Columbus Chamber
economist who now runs his own consulting firm.